Thursday, August 8, 2019

Unfortunately, that leaves
out the Washington Post (WaPo) and ALL the Democrat Presidential Candidates!

Passing laws dealing with
gun “cosmetics” rather than “ballistic characteristics” is stupid so as soon as
I hear a politician or reporter use the terms “assault rifle” or “military
style” I immediately dismiss them as clueless. We need a serious discussion of
the issues by people that actually know what they’re talking about but all I
hear from people that couldn’t pick the AR-15 out in a line up with Nerf guns
is we need "common sense gun laws." To help educate these people I
have put together this graphic so they can identify the different types of
weapons.

Seems
Politicians and reporters that keep demanding gun legislation never seem to be
able to suggest many "common sense" Laws and the WaPo is no
exception. I’m all in favor of universal background checks, keeping guns out of
the hands of convicted felons and people who have received less than honorable
discharges from the Military, and “Red Flag” Law. I’m
also for limiting magazine size to 10 rounds although a trained shooter can
change magazines in a fraction of a second. Unfortunately, most of the
mass shootings would not have been prevented by a background check as the
shooters didn’t have anything recorded that would have stopped them from
legally buying a gun.How
about we start by fixing the major flaw in the Background Checks system by making states report data and require
the National Instant Criminal Background Check
System (NICS) be checked BEFORE ALL gun sales.Presently over
half the States do not populate the NICS with State criminal or mental health information.
Unfortunately, the fix may be difficult. Using the same argument California is
using to defend their Sanctuary State Laws protecting illegal aliens from ICE
Agents, it may be impossible to force States to enter data into the NICS to
keep people with disqualifying criminal or mental conditions from purchasing a
firearm.Next, maybe we should be writing laws
that address acceptable weapons and ammunition ballistic characteristics rather
than using such meaningless terms as “military style” and “assault rifles.” It
would probably surprise most anti-gun zealots to learn that if I were to saw
the pistol grip and flash suppressor off a semiautomatic AR-15 it would not fit
the Federal or any State definition of an “assault rifle” yet the lethality of
the weapon would be unchanged.It’s like passing “cosmetic” laws banning two
door cars because they look sporty so people that drive them may be inclined to
speed. When NY state passed the SAFE Act shortly after Sandy Hook, it basically
outlawed AR-15 style rifles yet within a week manufactures were selling a work
around that was the same basic gun missing a couple features like the pistol
grip.I would add the true
definition of a Military “Assault Rifle” is “a selective-fire rifle (capability
to be adjusted to fire in semi-automatic, burst mode, and/or fully automatic
firing mode) that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine.”Hence, Military “Assault Rifles” have been
strictly regulated since passage of the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. This
federal law regulates fully automatic weapons, suppressors, short-barreled
rifles and shotguns and was subsequently modified in 1968 by the Gun Control
Act and in 1986 by the Firearm Owners Protection Act.NFA items are highly regulated and a special
license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is
required to manufacture, sell, and own any of these items, without exception.One
final piece of educational material for the WaPo, Military Style semi-automatic
Assault Rifles are not the major problem as the vast majority of firearm deaths
are caused by handguns. Also, in fact Assault Rifles are LESS Lethal than the
standard hunting rifle.The .223 round
fired by the AR-15 (the single shot civilian equivalent of the M-4/M16) is less
lethal than the .308 Winchester which is the standard round used in
hunting rifles.The .308 is very similar
to the military 7.62x51 NATO cartridge fired by the M-14 rifle and M-60 Machine
Gun, but the .308 is loaded to higher pressures.In Vietnam I’ve seen enemies hit with both
the .223 (5.56mm) M-16 round and the 7.62 fired by both the M-240/M-60 and the M-14
and given the choice I’d much prefer to be hit by the smaller and less powerful
.223 every time.Seems those who have
never served don’t know this.In
conclusion, I support the US Constitution and the Second Amendment that
guarantees every citizen the right to own a firearm for self-protection. Ask
any citizen who has been directed by law enforcement to “shelter in place”
because a crazed killer was loose in their neighborhood and if they answer
honestly, they will confess they wished they had had a firearm. But I also
agree there are some limits such as the ban on automatic weapons and high
capacity magazines that should be enacted but law abiding citizens should never
be deprived of their Constitutionally protected right to possess a fire arm for
self-protection; otherwise, only criminals that don’t abide by laws anyway will
have guns and the rest of us will be classified as “their victims.”Serious
fixes demand serious discussion by serious people. Unfortunately, knowledgeable
serious people are few and far between and certainly don’t include anyone at
the Washington Post, New York Times or most of the media and very few in the
U.S. Congress.

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

BUT BLACK PANTHER WAS A
DISTANT SECOND

Again this year I truly appreciate the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences members telling me that GREEN BOOK was the
Best motion picture of the year, but in the ONLY category that really
counts – MONEY MADE – it appears the International audience made a different decision. When it
comes to picking movies, I always "trust the mob" so here is how the
movie going paying public ranked this year’s movies as of 25 February
2019.

In a departure from the norm, two of this year’s
eight nominees for Best Picture are among the eight top money maker of the past
year with Black Panther coming in a distant second at $1.347 Billion and Bohemian
Rhapsody was #6 bringing in $861 Million.This year’s Top earner and crowd favorite was AVENGER: Infinity War with a whopping $2,048.4 take at the
box office.That means AVENGER
made nearly 30 times more money at the box office then the Academy’s “Best”
picture selection – GREEN BOOK.
Although I’m sure winning the Oscar is a
great honor, I’m confident the producers of GREEN BOOK would gladly trade their
Oscar for the extra $1.979 Billion Avenger earned.

Hence, as in past years
in the money spending public’s opinion it was again no contest ….and the WINNER is, bank statement Please (drum roll),
the hands down winner by a country mile is (sorry GREEN BOOK): AVENGER: Infinity War!

As a footnote, if BlacKKKlansman
had won the Oscar for Best Costume Design, Virginia Governor Ralph
Northam would have been really pissed off since it would have been a rip off of
his 1984 Halloween costume and he has his Medical School yearbook photo to
prove it.

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Based
on the cost of border barriers already completed, $5.7 Billion should just
about seal the entire US-Mexico Border. According to a recent US Army Corps of
Engineers (USACE) briefing (slide above), between 2007 - 2009 (2 years) they built
400 miles of Border Barrier in support of US Customs and Border Protection at a
total cost of $1.3B. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the
Cumulative Price Change since 2010 to today is 15.16% (yearly average inflation
rate has been 1.78%). Doing the math that means $1.3B of 2009 dollars is ~$1.5B
in 2019 dollars ($1,497,042,502.84 to be exact) so $5.7B should buy another
1523 miles of border wall. Given USACE has already built 400 miles, if Trump
builds another 1523 miles then he should have 1923 miles completed. The entire
United States and Mexico border is only 1954 miles so that leaves only 31 more
miles to build to completely seal the US-Mexico border 100%.

All
I did was take the briefing slide from the USACE briefing (the briefing is posted on the Army Engineer Association website under the August 2018 Industry Seminar) and extrapolate from the numbers there to estimate the cost. In the
construction World, past experience or analogous estimating is a recognized
method for estimating the cost of future work of similar scope but that number
would be the contracting costs so would include any access roads but not land
purchases nor would it account for significant differences in terrain.I can’t speak to what other “experts”
estimate, only how much the existing 400 miles of barrier actually cost. To
be honest, I don’t contemplate all 1954 miles of border will require fencing
nor do I expect the unfinished portions of barrier be as easy or inexpensive to
construct as what has been completed.I
do believe the $50 - $70 Billion some Members of Congress are throwing around wildly
exaggerate the cost and that the actually cost will be in $7 - $10 Billion
range for what really requires fencing.Just something to ponder.

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Today, New Year’s Day 1 January
2019, the Washington Post published the homicide statistics for Washington, DC
and the surrounding Maryland and Virginia adjacent suburbs in an article entitled: "Homicides spike in District as shootings become more lethal, police say" . The stats once again clearly demonstrated that
any WaPo reader so naïve as to believes the myth that onerous gun laws yield
safer communities needed to look no further than the stats in this WaPo 1 Jan
19 article to be disabused of that fantasy. Using the data in that article and
the latest Census Bureau population numbers, I calculated the homicide rates of
DC and the adjacent Maryland and Virginia suburbs.Here are the results:

This means a DC resident, where
firearms are virtually impossible to own, is almost 10 times more likely to be
a homicide victim then one of us Gun Tottin Virginians who live in a state
where gun ownership is almost unrestricted.Even a Marylander with very restrictive gun laws is over five times less
likely to be a homicide victim than a DC resident; much better than DC but a
Marylander is still almost twice as likely to be a homicide victim than one of us
Virginia Gun Totters!

This article clearly shows the breathtaking
disparity in homicide rates between the jurisdictions of DC or Maryland that
not only don’t have the death penalty but where criminals have little chance of
being confronted by a law abiding citizen who just might have a gun of their
own and Virginia where gun ownership is almost unrestricted and the only
question for murders is “do you prefer the needle or the chair?” That same WaPo
article noted that 40% of DC homicide offenders had a previous gun arrest

The statistics clearly demonstrate
that contrary to liberal rhetoric, it is an “inconvenient truth” that “guns
actually do make us safer.” Ask any Bostonian who was directed to “shelter in
place” during the Marathon Bomber manhunt how they feel about owning a gun
now! Could it be that homicidal maniacs
would much rather commit their crimes in jurisdictions like DC and MD without
the death penalty and are not so anxious to attack law-abiding VA citizens as
they might be "packing heat?"